Readings - http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/081411.cfm
It’s been a nice summer with regard to the Sunday readings this year. July had begun with three week opportunity to refect on a number of parables involving simple summertime often pastoral images – wheat, weeds, fields, treasures and pearls. Then we heard a couple of the Gospel’s great miracle stories – Jesus’ feeding of the 5,000 and Jesus’ walking on the sea.
This Sunday appears to form a transition, from the Miracle Readings of the previous Sundays to the readings that focus on confessions of faith. This week we hear of the Confession of Faith of the Syro-Phoenecian woman. Next week, we’ll hear St. Peter’s Confession of Faith.
Indeed, it is interesting that the Syro-Phoenecian woman’s Confession of Faith comes first (and it comes first in the Gospel of Matthew from which the Readings are taken. But then it has been a recurring theme in the Gospel that the marginalized often understand Jesus better than those who should have known better.
And the Syro-Phoenecian woman was not just martinalized but three times marginalized: First, she was a woman, and generally speaking Jewish religious leaders of the time didn’t talk to strange women. Second, she was foreign, ethnically, Syro-Pheonecian. Finally, she was of a foreign religion. She was pagan. And no good Jew talked to pagans.
Yet, this woman came to Jesus and called out “Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David.”
To many, her words ought to seem familiar, even if somewhat jumbled, because they are nearly identical to the blind man Bartimaeus who by the road in Jericho had called out “Jesus, Son of David have mercy on me!” (Mk 10:47, cf Mt 9:27). Bartimaeus was another utterly marginalized person, being blind. And even though he was blind, he actually “saw” better than the dicriples who did not understand who Jesus was and who tried to shut him up.
In the case of the Syro-Phoenecian woman, they tried to do so as well. And remember two weeks ago just prior to the Miracle of the Multiplication of the Loaves, they asked Jesus to send the people home. Repeatedly, the disciples (perhaps to protect their own status) tried to keep others away from “their Jesus.” And so it is here.
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Now that the Disciples would have behaved this way is not altogether surprising. As I noted, they seemed to be very protective of their closeness to Jesus. However, this reading is somewhat problematic, not because of what the Disciples were doing. Instead the Reading is somewhat problematic because of what Matthew has Jesus himself saying.
Afterall, Jesus himself seemed rather rude to the woman.
First he ignores her. Then he tells the Syro-phoenecian woman that he came for the “lost children of Israel.” Finally he tells her that only “It is not right to take the food of the children
and throw it to the dogs.”
What to make of this?
Perhaps the key here would be to understand that Matthew, writing to a Jewish-Christian was trying to portray Jesus as having been a good Jewish rabbi. Hence Matthew was trying to show his audience that Jesus really did come for the “Lost Children of Israel” first. But faced with both the needs and especially _the faith_ of some of the Gentiles, Jesus, _even if reluctantly_ reached out to them as well. It could have become a way for Matthew’s Jewish-Christian community to come to terms with the reality that the Gentile Christians were coming in, in every larger numbers and “taking over.” They were reminded at least that these Gentile Christians were “of great faith.”
Still it must have been challenging and perhaps even disappointing for to Matthew’s community to see this. Yet, the church was growing.
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And so then, we come to the challenge of the Gospel Reading for us today:
Who are the people who annoy us? Who we have trouble respecting? Worthy of our time? We all have the people who rub us the wrong way. Can we appreciate that these people, annoying to us as they may be, are still children of the same God, hence our brothers and sisters, and ... gasp ... may have something to teach us?
Can we take then this week, again in the still in the midst of summer to think of a couple of those people who annoy us and try to see how we could come to accept them for who they are (initially annoying as they may seem) and perhaps even see if we can learn a thing or two from them.
This may be a good time of year to do this. Life flows a little slower during the summer and so we may have the time necessary to take a project like this up. Besides, annoyance, “shortness of nerves” or outbursts of anger are often associated with things happening a bit faster than we are prepared to handle. In the summer, things move slower. So we have more time and perhaps a better attitude to take this up.
And it may be very useful to do so. One could gain a friend or two (or reduce the number of people to be worried about) and one could learn a thing or two as well.
Finally, we’d be doing what God wants us to do and preparing ourselves for our destiny in Heaven. Because if we don’t get along here, we’re going to have to get along there.
So then let us then take up this challenge today and seek to use this vacation time to work on fixing a relationship or two. It’ll make us better and help us to appreciate even a few of the people who previously annoyed us or caused us trouble.
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